Gaming and roleplaying have done a lot for me. They pushed me to meet friends, travel, and learn some of my earliest lessons in storytelling. It’s even led to a career. And one of the games that had the most profound effect on me was Vampire the Masquerade. Now, in its V20 (20th anniversary) guise, I get to play with some of those toys professionally.

The Kickstarter for the Deluxe V20 Lore of the Clans has begun. I’ll let that page tell you about the book. I got to do the write ups of two of the clans therein: the Followers of Set and the Tzimisce. The Kickstarter has some fun pledge rewards, and a nifty achievement system (involving some vampire-themed selfies). You can even download the pre-layout text of the 99% finished manuscript.

Here’s a little sample of what I wrote in it, the opening fiction from the Tzimisce chapter:

The Hospitality in Clay

With the ghoul’s corpse at my feet, I knew I was dead. Because, years ago, the Countess had vowed to end me, and the spirits of the angry earth hear her promises.

Had the Cardinal sent me to die? A gift-wrapped soul to squeeze the juices out of? He said it would be a fine gesture, an old enemy welcoming her to the new world. I was the one, the only survivor of my pack, or any of the other packs for that matter. All that prestige, but it was just dumb luck. My Romanian nights. The bad nights. The kind of hell you can only enter by pissing off an ancient, entrenched Fiend. I still wake to blood sweats in the day, pulling the grave dirt over myself like a safety blanket.

I drove up the long driveway, in disbelief that a creature like the Countess could uproot and move to New England. We never actually beat the crafty Koldun. One night, she offered peace and to play nice with the Sword of Caine. She had a very specific list of demands. We agreed to every one.

Approaching the manor, I caught memory fragments, thought I recognized trees, stones, brickwork, and statues. I could smell it — in the potted plants and garden — soil from the old country, aeons of blood and loam. That’s the thing about earth: it smells like birth and decay, and you take on the dreams of those who died in it. The Countess was the land, and she had brought it with her, piece by piece.

I waited for a servant to formally invite me inside before stepping over the threshold. Old memories haunted the manse. In the dining hall, I found a woman weeping. Mortal. Dinner. Then I found a dead man on the luxuriant carpet, throat vacated. I recognized him, a revenant ghoul, the Countess’s favorite.

A door burst open. “My lady, come quickly!” a voice called out. Another familiar face, Janos. We had flesh-ripping history. We flashed mutual fangs.

“Greetings.”

I flinched. Didn’t see her enter. Just a gust of wind, and then her stark face, cheekbones raised like guillotine blades.

“Countess,” I stammered. When did I learn to bow? She was resplendent in her frock coat. I felt suddenly self-conscious in my leather and body mods. I’m a child of the night. A badass skin-flaying, fang-kicker. Wherefore this fucking shame?

“He killed one of yours, in your own home,” Janos said.

A deadly dark eyebrow arched. The rest of her was statue still, except those long, powerful fingers. Her hands never stop moving. She looked at me. Through me. Dying moths fluttered under my skin.

Then she looked at Janos.

“No,” she said. “That is not what happened.”

“He killed Mircea!”

“That is two lies, Janos.”

Her grandchilde’s mouth opened. Closed. Then he whispered, “I did it for you, Baba. Now we can kill him.”

Then the Countess was there, shielding me, the knife in her chest. Her face was still, but the rats raged in the walls, the wind shrieked, and the windows blackened with thousands of leathery wings.

Janos cowered. “No, Baba. Don’t kill me.”

“Shhh,” she said, a finger on Janos’s lips, and he froze. “I honor enemies with death, not trespassers.” She then whispered old words into his ear. I heard the name “Kruchina.” Janos wept, full-bodied sobs, till he was nothing but blood tears and blood snot.

The Countess swallowed Janos with her eyes and said, “Go now and tell Fickó to give you thorough tenderness.” Janos’s head darted about in terror as his Judas limbs carried him away.

The lady of the manor then gently took my arm, pulled out my chair, and sat me down at the dining table. She placed the living girl before me.

“He was right,” I said. “That was a perfect opportunity to kill me.”

“You are my guest,” the Countess said, as if explaining gravity to a child who dropped a toy down a deep well with no echo. “Perhaps one day we will honor one another, but for tonight, I will sacrifice every drop of my blood and every pound of my flesh to protect you.”

Taking her seat, she opened an ornate music box. It played a twinkling Romanian lullaby. Inside was a handful of the ancient earth. Praying, she opened her wrist and bled upon the soil. Then, she began to eat.

My smartphone vibrated and burned in my pocket, but I dared not answer it. Outside, something howled. Somewhere, Janos screamed. That’s when I knew I was dead. Sooner or later. The Countess keeps every promise.

You’re not human tonight… Maybe I never was or ever will be… Maybe we all get like this in the cold half-lit world where always the wrong thing happens and never the right. …you’re not human tonight.

That dripping, noir morsel is from Raymond Chandler’s The Little Sister.

Back in the mid 90s, a sixteen-year-old me opened up Vampire: the Masquerade. I’ve never been the same. That’s the short-hand version. Today, Blood & Smoke: the Strix Chronicle was released. I’ve written for White Wolf (and Onyx Path) before. I wrote a novel, a short story, and a little game writing on the side. But this book is the thing that tickles that teenage fan boy rattling my ribcage.

I wrote the vampire clan chapter and the “All Night Society Chapter.”

This book is an overhaul of the Vampire: the Requiem game. Rose Bailey, the developer, gave the book the most focused and relentless vision of any group creative project I’ve ever worked on. I’m a writer who benefits from an editor who works me. She worked me, and I’m proud of the result.

One of the things that Rose did with the line (and that I felt very comfortable diving into) was dousing it all in Chandleresque noir. And if you need a little foreplay to get in the mood, I have just the thing.

Howzabout a teaser sample, loveling? Here’s a little micro-ficiton for each vampire clan.

Something dead approaches…

Daeva: the ones you die for

He warns you. You’re going to do it anyway. You both know that. Eyes like TV ads that enslave you to debt. Voice like the fast food jingle talking you into suicide by tiny bites. The wanting. Every happiness you already have turns to bile. You smile. “Yes,” you say. “More,” you say. “Anything.”

Gangrel: the ones you can’t kill

Wasn’t the howling. Weren’t the claws or magnesium eyes or the lizard brain keening, “Run, run, run!” Was the change. Like them trashy drive-in horrors, only on rewind. Monstrous bulk shrinking — snout flattening — fangs dulling down to pearls — fur receding to a naked obscenity. The smiling little girl walking towards you on filthy feet. That’s what did it. Ten thousand beasts pressing out on her belly like it’s a theatre curtain on opening night. That’s what emptied your bowels and sanity.

Mekhet: the ones you don’t see

That shit-eating grin. The shit-heel prick. How’d he get into your game? “Not playing the cards; I’m playing you,” he croons. He’s not wearing shades, but you can’t see his eyes. Chuckle. “Always wearing shade,” he says. Did you talk out loud? The fucker is playing the cards, because you just did a bottom deal, a triple lift, and two moves that ain’t got names. You know his hand. He’s already lost. Bastard’s not even looking at his cards. He knows. He doesn’t say, “Fold.” Says something else. Says your secret. The thing no one else knows. The thing you sit up at night praying no one ever finds out. The table flips. Loud noises. Your poker buddies beat you bloody. Through it all, you see his grin. He just fades away, and the last thing floating in the tobacco smoke is that grin.

Nosferatu: the ones you fear

“Shhh.” The voice behind you sounds like a squeezed handful of grave worms. It tells you that it will follow you home. It tells you that if you can make it to your front door, by the long path or the short, without turning around or nary a peep, it won’t kill you. When did you lose your shoes? The pavement turns to tongue meat, tasting your bleeding soles with every step.

Ventrue: the ones you can’t deny

“Let’s make this interesting,” she says. She tells you all the heinous things you are about to do. You laugh in her face. Ridiculous. Then, one by one, all of your limbs betray you. You see everything. You see it all through the socket windows of your Judas body. You try, and fail, to scream through the frozen smile fracturing your face.

Yesterday, I had both the Bauhaus “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” and the theme song to Picture Pages stuck in my head. Round and round they whirled. A snag. A fray. The threads got tangled in my boiling brain…

The bats have left the bell tower
The victims have been bled
Time to get your crayons and your pencils
Bereft in deathly bloom
Alone in a darkened room
You can play with Picture Pages
Fill your day with Picture Pages
‘Till Bela Lugosi does a Picture Page with you

Would you like to hear a story? This is a good one. And very short. This is the story and the story goes: Simon meets Janie D. at work. She tells him who hurt her. She smiles. This is love. This is rigor mortis.

My first novel, Strangeness in the Proportion, is now available in print. This makes me more than a little giddy, more than a little, “Cousin Larry, we so happy, we do the dance of joy.” Why not buy a copy and share my giddiness?

If we can define power as the degree one affects the universe — and if we agree that buying a book by a mega-popular author (say Steven King) has less effect on his universe (by degrees) than a less popular, less accomplished author — then we can conclude that buying Strangeness may just be the most powerful purchase you make this year.

Not so long ago, I was somewhat worried that no one would like Simon and his scalpels and head full of undead crows and cadaver romancing. But people seem to be falling for the little weirdo. That almost feels more important to me than whether or not they liked the book. Maybe I’m just attached. We’ve been co-living in my head for over half a decade.

I recently ordered some business cards. I can’t resist Poe references. And you should respect my addiction.

To the Russian Clive Barker fans who found this blog via the internet search term “сенобиты” — I say to you:

· The PDF sells for $4.99. The e-reader formats are not available yet (e-pub, kindle, etc.), but if people get the PDF at DriveThruFiction, those formats will be free for customers once available – they’ll appear as additional downloads.
· Print on demand is on the way, though I don’t know a date or price just yet (stay tuned!).
· Once all of the are formats are sorted out, the ebooks will be available at storefronts like Amazon, B&N, and the like.

And finally, in celebrating Vampire the Masquerade’s 20th anniversary, I have an essay over at FlamesRising.com about how I met the Masquerade. Warning: contains gore, slashers, and me as a grade school boy.

It’s been a long road and a surreal day. I’ve heard a few people, in retrospect, say that Vampire and World of Darkness fandom has been something more than gaming fandom, almost like the fandom for a favorite band. I feel like my favorite band asked me up on stage to play a few sets with them. Rock on.

John, my venerable cop chum who I’ve befriended in my graveyard shift pulled me aside and gave me a hushed warning, told me to call him if there was ANY sign of trouble and I thought to myself, “Cripes! I’ve been awake for 29 hours…I can’t handle a gang war.”

We’ll get back to that.

First though, and more cheerfully, it’s a scientific fact that hot cider tastes better while listening to ghost stories. I got to further support this theory on the 20th, at Volo Bog.

Second, I apologize to all my close friends, all the friends I normally see on a normal basis, all my far flung friends that I might visit on occasion, and all you electronic lovelings on the internet—I’m way, way, WAY behind on emails and even further behind on phone calls. I’m not shunning anyone. I’m just in a frenzied, bad place and have very few hours. By way of example…let’s get back to the start of this post…

I’ve been working 40 hours each week, 3rd shift, at 7-11 (the artist formally known as White Hen)—but with the wind chill and demanded extra shifts; it’s more like 50+ hours. I don’t want to get off on a rant about my job, but I think that if I died and went to Hell, it would be working at a convenience store, and all the clocks would be broken, and my watch would be blank, and I’d keep doing tasks of Sisyphus-level productivity, and occasionally ragged, insane, and damaged lost souls would wander in and jabber incomprehensibilities before leaving and my mind would be too fogged to recall what day it was or when my shift began or when it would end, too fogged to recall just what lay outside the fogged store windows…

Meanwhile, a couple Wednesdays ago, my brother Nick and I went to Chicago for an audition he discovered on Craigslist for the pilot episode of a TV show about vampires. Brutal traffic, but we make it on time and the we do some readings and it goes well. The director seems impressed with the both of us. He’s in a rush to cast the thing and film it over the weekend (it’s more of a pilot teaser to shop around).

Nick, our friend Dori, and I all go and film as badass vampires, a couple of Saturdays ago. But that Saturday I was told (I was not asked) that I would fill in for someone and work at 7-11. That meant a 33+ hour workday: 3rd shift Friday night into Saturday morning, straight to the shoot Saturday morning into Saturday evening, straight to another 3rd shift. I’ve been awake that long before . . . but never actively working straight through it (except for a 40 hour writing stint when I was finishing the White Wolf novel draft, which caused me to go quite mad). My body didn’t like that. My mind started giving out. And to top it all off, John the cop came and informed me (in whispers) that there was a potential gang battle between two gangs from towns on the opposite sides of my town (and I being only thing open in the misty-mid-region between). This was not the thing I wanted to hear at a point in time, when I thought the cash register was changing the locations of it’s keys on me as part of some prank (and I swear I could hear it laughing Puckishly!).

No gang battle. John and his comrades shut down a party one of the gangs was throwing (apparently to plan nefarious deeds), and said bangers were sent packing back to their town. John came back to inform me. I gave him more free donuts, coffee, and sandwiches. I got home Sunday morning, saw Nick sleeping, and realized, to my horror, that he had slept twice in the time that I was awake.

Fast forward to Monday the 22nd. Nick gets call from the vampire director. Bad news, he lost the footage (computer crash)—could we film again on Wednesday. Yes. This meant another long day for me (3rd shift—shoot—3rd shift). Egads! I had enough Monster energy drinks to flat-line the Leviathan.

But I survived.

This is just to illustrate why I don’t have much time for socializing. It’s not you, it’s me and . . . ugh . . . sorry . . . cliché head freeze.

There is one tiny advantage to this burn-out pace—I’ve lost 7 pounds in the last week and a half. Of course, it’s probably not healthy weight loss. It’s probably seven pounds of muscle, internal organs, and happiness.

Something about this holiday season and conversations with my Mom . . .

Conversation With My Mom (Part II):

Me: What do you get a baby for Christmas?

Mom: What?

Me: A baby. For Christmas?

Mom: What kind?

Me: . . . . . human.

Mom: What?

Me: My Goddaughter.

Mom: Oh . . . OH . . . that baby. [laughing] I thought you were saying that you wanted a baby for Christmas and were asking about that.

Me: No. I dozed off in Health Class but I have a pretty good idea how to make one of those. I mean, we do have Animal Planet.

The novel contest is starting to drive me nuts. Waking up, every day, for several months thinking THIS COULD BE THE DAY! and rushing to the computer can do bad things to your brain.

Mysterious, unaccounted for, and unexplained bags of coffee managed to get into my room, all the way from Georgia, today. I’d explain that statement, but it sounds better cryptic.

My parents home has a very SLOTH effect on me and I got to figure out a way to counteract it. Lazy is good . . . but this gets ridiculous. There’s more to do. Every day I should be asking myself how to sharpen my quills.

I often need to meditate to sort out the various cherubs and goblins in my head, but, I’m not much for routine, so there never is a set way, I always find a different ritual. Last night’s ritual involved driving about in the AM hours, past skeleton trees with the window open, listening to medieval winter music, and eating Taco Bell.

I’m uploading some Rasputina music. I can’t say all of it was acquired legally (and have you noticed that all of those “pirating music/movies is bad, don’t be a pirate” commercials have stopped? I think it’s because a certain set of Johnny Depp movies has the high entertainment execs worried that if they liken downloading to piracy, the kids will do it all the more. I mean, what little lad or lass with a decent bandwith doesn’t want to be a pirate?), but if I see them in person, I plan on slipping them a twenty spot. Fuck the middle man.

I suppose if I were to do this properly . . . I ought to spike up my coke with some rum . . .